D.C. - Archives & Capitol Tour

We started our day waking up before 6 am to the sound of water running somewhere in the trailer...oh wait...that's Heidi peeing on the floor again! Argh. Thankfully, she finished the last of her prednisone dosage from her infection around her eye last night. I really hope that is why this is happening right now and that this is not a bad behavior cropping up after three and a half years. She hadn't whined or barked or anything. I took her out for a walk right away and it made us thankful that we'd made the decision to hire a dog walker for midday today since our plan was to be gone all day. Now we just have to wonder how Heidi will react to a stranger coming and opening up the trailer to take her out.

With our early start to the day, Brock had time to head over to the store and see about buying the Smartrip cards for fare paying. When you use them you save a little on your fare everytime and don't have to worry about finding cash and buying paper tickets. We purchased 6 of the cards and they cost $5 and come preloaded with $5 on them. We were able to get to the metro station by right around 9 am. We decided to drive to the station instead of taking the bus from the rv park because the station is only a little over 2 miles away and we'd save a little bus fare by not riding both ways. When we got to the parking lot, it seemed that the anticipated parking fee was free today. Bonus! In the parking lot, we discovered that either someone stole or we lost one of our hub caps off one of our tires. They do have several screw on caps that hold them on so it doesn't seem like it would just fall off. Boo!

We got inside the station and could NOT figure out how to use the machines to charge up our fare cards. We asked the booth attendant and she "cheerlessly" came out of her booth and helped us. She was very matter of fact and repeated her instructions in a tone that was a little less than friendly, not quite harsh, but close, but she did help us and we were able to get the cards loaded with some money so that we should be good for most of the week. We went first to the gates and tapped our cards on the reader and nothing happened. We tried again. Nothing. Then a nice man with a smile on his face, coming the other way, told us to look for the green lights and use those gates and it worked. I guess there are ins and outs. We are such country bumpkins, but oh well.

The train ride was pretty uneventful, not too crowded at that time, and we arrived at the Archives stop in not too long. We came out of the station at that end and we're not sure, but we think, one of us may have gotten a free gate because the little door stayed open and so one of the little kids followed the big kid through.

We emerged into daylight, but it was actually a pretty dark sky for 9:40 in the morning. Almost immediately it started to rain at a pretty good clip and we were trying to figure out on which side of the building was the entrance. Of course, we were on the exact opposite side and had to walk all the way around. We tried to huddle under our one umbrella, but eventually some of us gave up and just tried to stay under the trees and walk fast. At the front of the building, there was a pretty long line forming to enter. It turned out that we were there just about 15 minutes before the building opened which was perfect. I felt really bad for the people with no umbrella because it rained most of the 15 minutes that we would have to wait before the doors opened. We could at least cluster very tightly under our one. I should've had someone take our picture, huh?

The security station here ended up taking quite a long time and it was probably another 30 minutes before we got through it and had the freedom to enter the building and walk around a couple corridors and then get in another line to go to the rotunda where you can see the actual Declaration of Independence, the actual Constitution, and the actual Bill of Rights. That line took awhile too because security would allow 15 or so people into the rotunda at a time and it seemed like some of the other people viewing weren't out yet and so there was a backlog of people. The little boys were tired of the lines already and began to act up so we didn't get to spend as much time there as I would've liked. However, it was amazing to get to see the parchments (in the very limited light and however briefly) and we even got to see the Magna Carta from 1297!! I can't think of a better way to spend Independence week.

Brock had ended up taking the boys out and they found a hands on room where the kids could hold copies of the documents and look at them with magnifying glasses and write up their family tree and do puzzles, computer research, even see some Oregon state history via some pictures in a file that we were free to peruse.

When we left the archives, we came out and it wasn't raining anymore, but the skies were still very gray and so we went to the first street vendor we saw and bought two more $5 umbrellas. :O)

From there, we walked through the sculpture garden on the mall.

We then came out into the open grassy area of the mall, but it was surprising how much is actually going on there. There were several booths being set up for a festival and there are a LOT of buildings undergoing some kind of construction. We didn't get close yet, but the Washington Memorial is all covered with what looked like some kind of scaffolding. We headed towards the Capitol building, thinking that we might hit a museum on our way to our Capitol tour appointment. We ended up stopping for a little snack right there in the mall. It felt a little surreal to actually be seeing what we were seeing.

Moving towards the Capitol, it started to rain pretty hard again and we moved into the Botanic Garden building to escape the drops. It was a really impressive building with tons of variety and blooms and different types of gardens. My favorite was the Orchid Room. There were so many really exotic and beautiful and heavenly smelling blooms.

Brighton thought this was Brock's namesake.

Once we left the Botanic Garden, we decided we'd better try to figure out how to find our tour because it was a little before 1 pm and our tour started at 1:30 and we were supposed to be there 15 minutes early to go through security. We ended up walking right to the Rayburn House where our congressman, Rep. Greg Walden, has his office. We made it through security pretty quickly; there was no line. We hit the restrooms and then went up a floor to the office. We again felt like country hicks as the door was closed and we weren't sure if we knocked or just went in. LOL Spencer gave a little knock and then Brock opened the door and we were greeted by a friendly face of an intern who was on his way to open the door for us. He knew we were there for the tour and he made a little small talk with us. Turns out he is from Bend too! He showed us Rep. Walden's office. Mr. Walden, after a busy voting week last week, is back in district meeting with constituents this week so we didn't get to meet him, but if he were there, we were assured, he would have met with us. We got the impression not too many Oregon constituents make it out to D.C. for a visit.

Then our tour guide, another intern, Christian, came out and greeted us. He is from Portland and just graduated from University of Portland and is headed to Notre Dame to study law this fall. Our tour ended up being just us and Christian which was really unexpected, but so nice! Christian said their office might give at most 4-5 tours a day and usually take turns doing them. The interns answer phone calls and read emails from constituents and in general help to make things happen. It sounds like they work long hours, but not as long as staffers especially when congress is in session.

The first thing we did was go down to a long tunnel-like route to traverse underground from the Rayburn building, learning there are three separate buildings housing offices for the 435 different representatives, under the road through the Cannon tunnel and into the Capitol building itself. We were so grateful to have a guide to explain and direct us. I think if we were just wandering around on our own we wouldn't have gotten nearly as much out of our visit. (not even a hint of all that we learned from Christian). Everywhere was very crowded and full so I didn't get as many good pictures as I would have liked.

Here are just a couple of highlights...

Lady Freedom in the Capitol Rotunda. A sculptor's model for the statue on the top of the building. She is beautiful!

The cornerstone of the original Capitol building, laid by George Washington in 1793. Now enclosed in the addition and under glass to preserve it.

 We went through the crypt which was intended to be memorial over the tomb of George Washington, but didn't end up that way since he left specific instructions that he wanted to be buried at Mount Vernon. It is an impressive circular room filled with 40 big columns and has a marble tile in the middle that marks the exact center of D.C. and is supposed to bring a person luck if they rub their foot on it. Christian also showed us one of I guess several cat pawprints in the 200 year old cement of the floor from when they were constructing. We got to see Statuary Hall where there are statues of several prominent Americans. Evidently each state can have two statues of people of their choice up in the Capitol. Ours, for Oregon, in Statuary Hall was Rev. Jason Lee who was the first Oregon missionary. He worked to promote education and his plans resulted in the founding of Willamette University, the first university west of the Mississippi. We saw another Oregon statue in the Hall of Columns, this one of John McLoughlin who was given the title "Father of Oregon".

This amazing chandelier was purchased from a wrecking company for about $1500 in 1965 and
is now estimated to have a value of over $20 million.

We got to go into the Old Senate Chamber which was used up until 1859 by the Senate and then later for the Supreme Court, but is now restored to look as it would've for the Senate. The porthole portrait of George Washington on the wall behind the eagle is supposed to be one of the most accurate representations since it was commissioned while he was still alive. The golden eagle, which is solid wood with a good paint job, and the vice president's chair, and the portrait are all original.

We also had a pretty long wait of it, like about an hour, but we got to go into the gallery seating and look down on the house floor. It was very cool to see it in person. We saw the c-span camera that would be broadcasting 24 hours a day when anything is happening on the floor. The room definitely looks smaller in person than it does on TV. Christian pointed out a lot of interesting things in the room like LCD panels that are disguised to look just like the other fabric covered panels that cover the rest of the upper part of the room, bullet holes from an event in the 50's, busts of different lawgivers that go around the top of the room and include a bust of Moses looking directly down on the floor.

Outside Rep. Walden's office

Our beloved guide, Christian, who gave us a great day full of wonderful Capitol memories.

We were all pretty hungry and had walked at least a few miles so we said goodbye to Christian and headed out to the street and walked a couple of blocks to Tortilla Coast to eat a wonderful Mexican lunch/dinner. (Thank you, Grams for the extra experience funds!)

Here we enjoy our warm, crispy thin chips and yummy salsa while we wait for our food.

After our delicious meal we walked around a little more. The sun, and the humidity, were out and we enjoyed seeing the buildings in that light versus the rain. It was right around 5 pm so we didn't really have enough time to see any full museum or anything, but the mall is really beautiful to just enjoy.

Library of Congress - still hoping to tour inside later in the week. 

Walking a big cement curb balance beam right in front of the Capitol 

Supreme Court Building is undergoing some repairs evidently, so there is a facade out front and we were approached by a nice older lady who was protesting the death penalty. She asked us to read her pamphlet and if we would, she would take our picture. LOL 

Loving the lighting at this time of the day - front of the Capitol Reflection Pool 

The Senate Side of the Capitol. Couldn't believe how "uncrowded" the area was at this time of day,
but the two people you can see in the pic are strangers.

Tomorrow is a little bit of a relaxing day since Brock has to do payroll and we have a little bit of "housekeeping" type business to do. I think our feet would like a little break anyways and we'll be raring to head back into the city on Wednesday.